Sonnet gives you room for growth?

Computer manufacturers are under enormous pressure from the marketing team to create badge appeal. At the same time, they have to satisfy the business need to make a profit in a market that is ultra-competitive.

Computer manufacturers are under enormous pressure from the marketing team to create badge appeal. At the same time, they have to satisfy the business need to make a profit in a market that is ultra-competitive.

The result is that aesthetics and costs can be given priority over features. For the average user this may be nothing more than an occasional inconvenience. But in high pressure work environments, or the creative industry, it can mean missing deadlines and losing customers.

The Usual Shortcomings

Typical omissions can apply to super-slim PC and Mac Ultrabooks just as much as to budget laptops. They can equally apply to prestigious workstations and servers from the world’s leading manufacturers. Common failings include...

• Too few USB 3 ports
• No fast wired Ethernet port
• No support for legacy Firewire or eSata devices
• No easy connection to VGA or DVI monitors
• Internal storage cannot be expanded or upgraded
• No Blu-ray or DVD drive
• No mic input

Computer Steroids

Starting with USB connectivity, it’s possible to add full speed expansion ports to many, if not most, desktop computer systems. Take the Sonnet Allegro Pro USB 3.0 PCIe. Unlike other 4-port USB 3.0 cards, it doesn’t share bandwidth between each USB port. To deliver maximum performance, it hosts 4 independent bandwidth controllers. This means that USB external hard drives, scanners or graphics tablets can all run at full speed – at the same time.
Full Throttle Networking is vital in big data environments. Large HD workgroups or 4K teams need to share and exchange files quickly and easily. Anything less than 10Gb Ethernet is not enough. Enter the lightning quick Sonnet Presto 10GbE PCIe card. The overhead on the host computer is minimal – it’s all about the speed.

System performance can be massively enhanced by installing the OS and applications on solid state storage. With the Sonnet Tempo PCIe 3.0 SSD PCI card, users can enjoy a serious turbo boost for as little £260, with no need to uninstall existing drives.

Endless Joy! But it doesn’t stop there. Sonnet has Firewire, eSATA and PCI Express bus extender cards, ready to give your computer every bell and whistle.

Lifting the Lid

The problem with laptops, super-slim PCs or cone-shaped computers is simple: you just can’t insert a PCI expansion card. But help is on hand for Thunderbolt users so that you’re not stuck with a non-upgradeable machine that’s all too often not up to the task.

Sonnet leads the world in Thunderbolt technology. One of its most popular products is the cool-running Thunderbolt Echo 15 Dock which gives iMac, Mac Pro and Mac Book users* external storage, an optical reader/writer and massive connectivity in a unit half the size of a shoe box.
* works with Thunderbolt-enabled Windows machines too!

Pick your Flavour

Echo expansion units come in two varieties. Both allow massive system expansion for Thunderbolt computers.

1. PCI expansion devices: simply insert PCI cards into the device and connect it to your computer’s Thunderbolt port. It’s simple and effective, and even works with extreme graphics accelerators, as well as a range of audio, video and port expansion cards. Check out Echo Express III-D, SEI, SEII and SEL editions

2. PCI expansion devices with mobile rack expansion. These systems give you external PCI card expansion, but also allow users to add modules, such as:

• External Storage – add eight SSDs or hard drives
• Optical Drive with space for SSDs or HDDs for expanded storage
• Pro Media Reader with multi-format card reader and room for SSDs or HDDs for additional storage
• Data Migration with an external eSATA PCI card plus up-to 3 HDDs
• Data Archiving: add 4 SSDs or HDDs and an LTO tape drive

Check out xMac Pro Server and Echo Express III-R.

With Sonnet, there’s no compromise.